so married
by skin
even my fingers rush to study
every dry groove you carve across
my own face, our face,
the single self, splitting into
foil and forgetting
my labor, lost to
whatever magic brought you here,
your flotsam shadow,
at my feet—
double the weight of
a sinking house, mud-soaked in
my jagged outline, waiting for
the moon. You’re a moment slower,
a flit of veil through the trees—
the right hand in a window,
the left hand covered in blood, once,
swiping permission from my voice
then from my family, a timely guess as to
who is whom
who is to blame
when I cannot tell the difference
between the tooled or weaponed knife
in hands that look like mine
a mouth that lies and explores
with teeth along the same lover’s jaw,
enough force to render memory into ash,
the world of us fading
into film